Surrealism: Genesis of a Revolution

Hardback

Main Details

Title Surrealism: Genesis of a Revolution
Authors and Contributors      By (author) Megan McShane
SeriesTemporis Collection
Physical Properties
Format:Hardback
Pages:256
Dimensions(mm): Height 320,Width 265
Category/GenreArt and design styles - from c 1900 to now
ISBN/Barcode 9781859950180
ClassificationsDewey:709.04
Audience
General
Undergraduate
Postgraduate, Research & Scholarly
Professional & Vocational
Edition Illustrated edition
Illustrations 150 illustrations

Publishing Details

Publisher Parkstone Press Ltd
Imprint Parkstone Press Ltd
Publication Date 1 April 2006
Publication Country United Kingdom

Description

The Dada movement and then the Surrealists appeared in the First World War aftermath with a bang: revolution of thought, creativity, and the wish to break away from the past and all that was left in ruins. This refusal to integrate into the Bourgeois society lead Georg Grosz to remark of Dada, "it's the end of -isms." Breton asserted that Dada does not produce perspective, "a machine which functions full steam, but where it remains to be seen how it can feed itself." Surrealism emerged amidst such feeling. These artists often changed from one movement to another. They were united by their superior intellectualism and the common goal to break from the norm. Describing Dada with its dynamic free-thinkers, and the Surrealists with their aversive resistance to the system, the author brings a new approach, which strives to be relative and truthful. Provocation and cultural revolution: Dada and the Surrealists, aren't they above all just a direct product of creative individualism in this unsettled period?

Author Biography

Megan McShane is an art historian who received her Ph.D. from Emory University. Specializing in avant-garde European art during the Great Wars, she was a Violence Studies Fellow at Emory, where she received the President's writing award for research on women's issues. She further developed her interest in artists under Vichy at the Center for Advanced Holocaust Studies in Washington D.C. last year.